On the one hand these are officers of the United States Military and are being entrusted with incredibly powerful weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand they're manning a mostly irrelevant part of an antiquated weapons system that there's only a dubious need to even have in the modern world.

The inspection they're talking about is most likely a readiness or effectiveness inspection which takes the whole base into account. You'll get grouped into the civil engineering, communications, dining facility, security forces, public affairs, everything. Just because they get a 'satisfactory' grade doesn't mean the failed areas aren't getting hit really hard. It's almost certainly a 'commander's interest item' and will be scrutinized more than anything else. Now step 2....fix the problem with the entire nuclear program.

milowitz: The inspection they're talking about is most likely a readiness or effectiveness inspection which takes the whole base into account. You'll get grouped into the civil engineering, communications, dining facility, security forces, public affairs, everything. Just because they get a 'satisfactory' grade doesn't mean the failed areas aren't getting hit really hard. It's almost certainly a 'new commander's interest item' and will be scrutinized more than anything else. Now step 2....fix the problem with the entire nuclear program.

milowitz:The inspection they're talking about is most likely a readiness or effectiveness inspection which takes the whole base into account. You'll get grouped into the civil engineering, communications, dining facility, security forces, public affairs, everything. Just because they get a 'satisfactory' grade doesn't mean the failed areas aren't getting hit really hard. It's almost certainly a 'commander's interest item' and will be scrutinized more than anything else. Now step 2....fix the problem with the entire nuclear program.

Yep. This sounds like a Wing Inspection conducted by the parent Air Force Major Command, which would be the Air Force Global Strike Command (which consolidated the nuclear strike missions of Air Force Space Command and Air Combat Command) .U.S. Strategic Command (which oversees all nukes in the inventory, from Navy ballistic subs, to ICBMs, to nuclear bombers) would conduct its own Nuclear Surety Inspection.

This test cheating is rampant throughout the gov. It doesn't mean the cheaters are incapable of doing their jobs. It means it is the equivalent of a history test asking what time of day a battle took place, instead of who won, what the battle was fought over, and what the geopolitical effects were, etc.

I could be wrong in this case as I lack direct knowledge, but that is my experience.

lepton68:Are the launch codes still set to 0000? So how hard could it be?

Does the Air Force work anything like Corporate America? I can't imagine how some go-getting Colonel wouldn't look at that and say, "0000? We must change this to 1234!" and ride that piece of brilliance to a promotion. And the next year, his replacement would say "1234? We must change this to 0000!"Of course, the reason that sort of thing works in CA is that the codes would never actually change. They would just remain 0000 while all the cube monkeys sulked and griped about how much the managers make. In the Air Force, maybe people follow orders, and the codes would change, and that's why everyone is confused and can't do his job. Maybe if people quit doing what they were told, that would solve their performance problems.

Am I the only one here not surprised at all that our multi Billion Dollar Altar to the End of Days is secured by a 4 digit code that is the first try by any 4 year old hack?That truly is Military Grade Stupid.